Dragon Gate, La légende des sabres volants

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate must be watched in stereoscopic 3D to be properly appreciated. Its abundant visual spectacle is so clearly tuned for 3D that watching the film in anything less would mean you're not watching the real film at all. In 2D, the CGI backgrounds & objects are distractingly bad, robbing many scenes of their drama and gravitas. But in 3D, somehow it all works and you're transported into a vibrant, gorgeous world delivered with maximum visual panache.

If can watch this film in 3D (it's not hard -- Your smartphone & a Google Cardboard VR headset will give you full brightness 3D that's brighter than the cinema's 3D!), then this is a must see. If you can't, then don't even bother with this film.

This movie is directed by the legendary Tsui Hark, features one of my favourite actors with Jet Li and is about Chinese legends and myths. This sounds quite promising but the final result is only of an average quality and therefor rather disappointing.

The main problem is that Tsui Hark and Jet Li have become older but especially the director forgot to progress. He still does his movies the same way he did it in the late eighties or in the early nineties when they became international blockbusters. This style simply fails to impress nowadays. The choreographies are still bombastic and detailed but they feel even more exaggerated and artificial than usual because this movie is completely overloaded with special CGI effects. Jet Li has also become older and doesn't do the impressive fighting scenes he did in the past. He is quite underused in this flick.

All these things wouldn't be so bad if Jet Li incarnated a good character. In movies such as "Fearless", he proved that he is not only an excellent fighter but also a credible actor. If Tsui Hark had created an intriguing story, the high amount of effects wouldn't have harmed this movie. That's what the main problem is. The movie includes no interesting story line and is rather confusing. The story is very tough to follow because there are many impostors and conspiracies going on which would normally be interesting but as the amount of intrigues is too elevated, the formula simply doesn't work and one gets quite mixed up in the end. A few potentially interesting characters play only minor roles such as the Tartars while I feel almost no empathy with the main actors. Jet Li's acting remains faceless and if there are a few good actors in this film, then these are the female ones such as Xun Zhou and especially Gwei Lun-Mei.

Both Tsui Hark and Jet Li must though change their styles and skills to still create stunning movies these years. Both deliver a rather lukewarm performance and can't convince. The movie kicks off with a few interesting scenes and special effects but as soon as the story takes places in the desert tavern, the movie gets worse. The effects in the final third of the film are overwhelming and unnecessary and make the whole thing rather hard to sit through as it feels like a cheesy Walt Disney production. Any fan of both the main actor and the director should go for the original movies and ignore this one. The People's Republic of China seems to do the same mistakes as Hollywood these days and invests in useless remakes and sequels instead of focusing on fresh stories which I simply can't support as the originals were way better and innovating for their time. This here is for true fans only.

I watched this in 3-D and have to say it was worth it. There are some amazing effects on display here. Something even the critics will not deny the movie. What they will say of course is, that the movie is a bit of a mess when it comes to the plot/story department. And that accusation is not wrong. It's the visuals Tsui Hark is most concerned about. Which means you get more than a handful beautiful staged and choreographed scenes and sequences.

But the story isn't that bad and though bumpy, still easy to follow. Not many will criticize Michael Bay or any other Hollywood director for their focus on the technical aspect rather than the development of plot and character. This still is superior in the character department, even though it has some major flaws there too.

Still, if you want a good time with an enjoyable Eastern you could pick worse movies.

Tsui Hark goes back to the well to draw fresh inspiration, returning once more to King Hu's classic Dragon Gate Inn - which he already remade rather wonderfully in 1992. The story is given a fresh set of details to flesh it out, but the basic skeleton remains the same - evil eunuchs, patriotic rebels and independent forces of uncertain allegiance all converge on the eponymous inn, where identities are masked and secrets concealed until a game of wits allows the various parties to ascertain where they all stand - and exactly whose ass they need to kick.

This is not the first time that Tsui Hark has convinced himself that what one of his classic films really needed was an update with loads of CGI - witness Legend of Zu in 2001, an exercise which failed to convince anybody else of that viewpoint. This time he has an extra decade of Chinese experience in CGI to draw on though, and what's more... now he can do it in 3D! Well, I will have to take the internet's word for that, 'cause I watched in boring old 2D (albeit HD). Can he convince us this time that computer graphics are the tool he's been waiting for all along to truly unleash his imagination? No, he can't. Aside from a few impressive moments, the CGI still looks rather fake, and fails to impress or engage as well as the low-budget special effects (wires, clever camera work) that made the 1992 film such an impressive spectacle. Furthermore, he seems to have failed to note the main factor that caused Legend of Zu to rank so much lower in fans' hearts than its 1983 predecessor... all the special effects in the world won't engage an audience if they don't get involved in the story. Well-defined, likable (or hateable, where appropriate) characters whose fates we actually care about will encourage us to forgive any weaknesses in the special effects, but the converse is rarely true. Flying Swords of Dragon Gate fails to deliver on characters, and fails to develop the plot. The film begins by introducing the political intrigues of the court and the rival factions of the Eunuchs, then fails to provide any particular relevance to this detail. Jet Li plays a rebel who we assume to be patriotic, but doesn't actually offer any explanation whatsoever as to as his motivations, his particular plights, or much of a character at all (though he gets more than most). Various groups are introduced, and brought together at the inn, then the film sort of flounders for a little bit before everybody just sort of decides its time to start fighting. The sense of intrigue, the subtle details, the game of wits as these master fighters out-smart and out-guess each other... the actual meat of King Hu's original film, in other words... pretty much replaced by 'hey, one of the good guys happens to look exactly like the chief bad guy!'.

Oh well, Jet Li's on hand, so at least there must be some spectacular action, right? Oh yeah, I forgot... he got old. There are some nicely choreographed action scenes in places, but with too much reliance on CGI of mixed effectiveness.

Maybe I'm viewing the older films with a touch of rose-tinting, or maybe I'm just getting old and tHe KidZ will see the many virtues of the latest attempt to improve a classic that I'm missing. It probably did look quite spectacular in 3D-capable cinemas... but I am yet to be convinced that that can ever take the place of a well written script, or a director who still remembers that he has human actors on set somewhere, and that getting a great performance out of them is probably the most important of his job.

Who better to attempt the world's first 3D 'wuxia' movie than Tsui Hark- the man is behind some of the genre's most iconic representations like 'The Swordsman', 'Green Snake' and 'Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain', and with the latter also a pioneer for introducing Hollywood- style special effects to Chinese cinema. It seems befitting therefore that almost thirty years later, Tsui Hark should be the one to import the latest Hollywood fad for the same genre- and true enough, the veteran director's maiden effort at the third dimension is nothing less than impressive.

Like James Cameron, Tsui brings his considerable experience as a director to bear on the use of 3D to immerse his viewer into his cinematic vision. Gimmicks aside (yes, you'll still find all kinds of flying objects- wooden beams, arrows, knives and swords- coming straight at you), Tsui crafts each shot- static or moving- meticulously to create depth in every one of them and provide raison d'etre for the use of 3D. Tsui has of course had some generous help from Hollywood expert Chuck Comisky (who oversaw the visual effects for 'Avatar'), and the result is a milestone for the 'wuxia' genre as well as for Chinese cinema.

Alas for all its technical achievements, this loose remake of his classic 'New Dragon Gate Inn' unfortunately is let down by more conventional elements like plot and character. As with his earlier movie, the setup here is also the gathering of three disparate groups of individuals at a trading post in the middle of the desert. On one hand, there is the vigilante Zhao Huai'an (Jet Li), Zhao's female equivalent Ling Lanqiu (Zhou Xun), as well as a runaway palace maid Su (Mavis Fan) impregnated by the Emperor and therefore an assassination target by the Empress to preserve the lineage. On the other, there are the formidable Western Bureau troops, led by their fearsome commander Yu Huatian (Chen Kun), who have been sent by the Empress to kill Su and eliminate those opposed to the reigning monarchy.

The pursuit of the latter for the former leads their paths to cross with a ragtag group of bandits in search of ancient treasure buried under the sand near the inn. The advent of a once-in-60-years major sandstorm is supposed to unearth the treasure, and among those waiting to get a share of the riches are Gu Shaotang (Li Yuchun), Yu Huatian's doppelganger White Blade (also Chen Kun) as well as an intimidating Tartar warrior princess Buludu (Gwai Lun Mei) and her band of loutish tribesmen. Setting up such a sheer number of characters takes time, and a good half-hour is spent on exposition detailing these individuals and their relationships with each other. The effect of this after an exciting first half-hour watching Zhao assassinate the leader of the Eastern Front (Gordon Liu) and then finding himself outmatched by Yu is like adding a lead weight to the proceedings, so much so that what momentum the film had going for it is almost completely lost.

Perhaps even more significant is that Jet Li is practically absent during this half-hour, and by the time he does reappear to join in the action-packed finale, it's too late for any significant characterisation to allow his crusading warrior Zhao Huai'an to rise above the fray. There is a past romance hinted at with Zhou Xun's Ling, but Tsui provides too little elaboration on it- and if Jet Li's Zhao is thinly drawn, you can pretty much guess that the rest of the characters also suffer the same fate.

Not only does this first reunion of Tsui Hark and Jet Li outside the 'Once Upon A Time in China' series fail to create a cinematic icon like Wong Fei-Hung, it also gives Jet Li surprisingly little to do in the action department. As if hemmed in by the movie's title, Jet Li is almost always duelling only with his swords while performing some gravity-defying flight through the air, with ultimately too little of the lightning-quick hand-to-hand combat we've come to love about the action star. Not to say that Yuen Bun's action choreography doesn't thrill (it does, especially with Tsui's ability to direct elaborate action sequences), but one hopes that Yuen (who was also behind Tsui's 'New Dragon Gate Inn' back in 1992)- and his co-choreographers Lan Ha Han and Sun Jiankui- had exploited Jet Li's martial arts prowess for more.

While it fails to capitalise on its key asset (i.e. Jet Li), the film does deliver some thrilling action sequences that blend old-school choreography with modern-day CG wizardry- the showdown between Zhao and Yu right in the middle of a raging sandstorm is an excellent example of this combination. Amid the wire-ful stunts, the excellently staged swordplay stands out- and it is Zhou Xun, rather than Jet Li, who impresses with her elegant moves. Kudos too to Choi Sung-fai's fluid cinematography and Yau Chi-wan's deft editing in all the elaborately staged action sequences- especially one which seamlessly intercuts between the action inside the inn and below the inn when the triumvirate first converge.

In terms of visual spectacle, Tsui Hark is definitely at the top of his game, both the action choreography and the initiation of 3D into the 'wuxia' genre easily establishing itself as one of the must-see classics. Nonetheless, for all its technical achievements, this latest reworking of the 'Dragon Inn' mythology is let down by its poorly drawn characters and at times its frenetic over-plotting of deceptions and double-crosses. And even as Tsui has more than proved his prowess with new-fangled Hollywood magic, one wishes that he had also not forgotten his faculty for old-school elements like plot and character- after all, it was these that made his 1992 'New Dragon Gate Inn' such an enduring masterpiece.